Australia's greatest con

Forget your Nigerian banking scams: bottled water is surely the greatest con of the modern age. The other night the bonny bride and I hit the tiles for a night out. Dinner was first. ``Water?'' asked the waiter first up. Sure, said I, specifying ``tap water''. But the bride made the mistake of dropping the word ``still'' and instead of tap water she got a glass bottle of some imported stuff. When the bill came we found the charge for it: $8.50. For exactly the same stuff that comes out of the kitchen tap at home.

Waiters have become a bit devious with this. Some ask you whether you want ``still'' or ``sparkling'', cunningly locking you into choices of bottle. I learnt long ago to dismiss either: ``tap water'' thanks.

How did this outrageous rip-off get started?

I must admit I laughed at the idea when those bottles of water first appeared on the shelves years ago. What idiot would pay for something you can get free? It has since become apparent there are millions of idiots who are happy to do so. In fact, thanks to slick marketing and image-building, it has become quite trendy to hold on to such a bottle, a sort of perpetual lifeline to aqueous refreshment, as though dehydration is an ever-present danger.

How gullible is the human sheep -- what did they chant in Life of Brian: ``We are All individuals''. Barrrrr barr. This week I received an email which, even discounted for the Godwin Grech Factor about such correspondence, gave pause for thought about bottled water. In 2004 an estimated 28 billion plastic bottles of water were sold in the US with 86 per cent of the bottles ending up in the garbage. The average US citizen spent $US400 a year on this. And the oil used in the bottles would propel 100,000 cars for a year.

In Australia the water bottles soak up around 314,000 barrels of oil a year. The stuff that costs around $1.20 a tonne through the pipe in Melbourne costs $3000 a tonne in bottles. If you want the identical stuff in a fancy-label bottle from Italy that willset you back $9000 a tonne.

Here in the throw-away world the waste is mind-boggling but this bottled water business is waste upon waste upon waste: a natural resource, a free resource, that is turned into a massively expensive global pollutant.

The bride and I joined a gym a few months ago. There is a refrigerated cabinet of bottled water right next to a cooler that dispenses free water. Logic would tell you that the cabinet would end up covered in cobwebs. But each week I see some idiot buy a bottle of the stuff you can get free only two metres away.

Sometimes I think the human race is evolving backwards.

Posted
by Lawrence MoneyJune 29, 2009 5:42 PM

LATEST COMMENTS

Agree entirely with your comments. To yours I would like to add :

Generaly speaking:

This bottled water fad is the perfect example of how stupid we have become with our consumerism. Brainwashing was regarded as despicable in war but isn't there a form of that in electronic advertising with its great moving images and booming sound that causes us to chase whatever, whenever, whereever

Specific to the bottled water:

I at times wonder if all this water actually comes form where it is claimed, or in some case is it just tap water being bottled up and therefore is just straight out fraud?

We are told how much improved our dental health has become since we added fluoride to our water. What about the bottled water users?

One thought against the flow (pun?) is that accepting that the majority of the water does come from springs and spas, what would be the state of our dams if this stuff wasn't being consumed at the rate it is?